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Lewis Carroll connections in Curiouser and Curiouser
The episode "Curiouser and Curiouser" has many connections with the works of the writer Charles Dodgson, who wrote under the name "Lewis Carroll". Most, though not all, relate in one way or another to his books Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking Glass (1871). Lewis Carroll allusions The following is a list of Lewis Carroll connections in this episode.http://www.danaknight.com/EpGuide/season2/comments.html There are also more detailed comments provided for some of them. * The episode title * Walrus & cat masks on the Raven robbers * A blonde female vampire in the Raven looks very Alice-like * The ugly, colorful, plastic caterpillar Nick steps on * Bunny girls in background at the precinct station * Man in madhatter's tophat in background at the precinct station * ...and another man in blue silk cape and sparkly tophat. * I.A. investigator's name is Carol Lewis * ...and behind her, the wall's measuring marks go up to 7 ft. * LaCroix drinking tea & standing on the chessboard * Man w/oversized cards at the Raven's bar * Nick's fridge has a walrus magnet on it (really a manatee??) * ...and another, too-small-to-make-out white magnet. A cat or rabbit? * Fridge also contains a baby bottle with juice (The drink me Alice reference?) * ...and a cake with one piece cut out (The eat me Alice reference?) * ...and are those OYSTERS in the jars under the meat-keeper? * The loft has a club-shaped mirror (but it is always there) * ...and a Humpty-Dumpty inflatable toy * ...and a baby mobile with dodos (& flamingos?) * ...and a stuffed unicorn (see 'Through the Looking Glass' ch. 7) * ...and a crying baby (comment that he only does it to annoy him Alice reference) * ...also a March Hare in a blue band costume on a table * ...and a white rabbit (with tophat) on another table under the mirror * In the sound lab: Schanke has a pocket watch * ...and the sound tech's name is Alicia Carpenter * Schanke sarcastic comment on pigs flying. * Amanda's bartender wears a Raven jacket with a white queen on it * Natalie has a Wonderland character chess set * ...and a painting that looks a lot like Alice over her mantel * ...and maybe a stained glass Cheshire cat (barely visible) * Nick keeps commenting that everything was wrong. So did Alice. * Amanda commenting Nick was mad as a hatter. * The knife (the Vorpal blade) * Janette falls asleep next to a teapot and a piece of cake * The dragon over Nick's fireplace is now a rabbit * ...and the other carvings look like Tweedledee & Tweedledum * LaCroix recites several Carroll poems * Tipsy Amanda comments that she should have eaten something. * Does Janette's cold corned beef hash = the Duchess' pepper soup? * Ambulance drivers (cut from final version) were Tweedledee & Tweedledum * Schanke's description of the Raven crowd as a kinky wake. (A Mad Tea Party?) * Amanda blows smoke in Nick's eyes (as the Caterpillar did to Alice) * Egg-shaped sculpture on Nat's mantel * ...as well as small spherically-pruned plants (the rose bushes?) * Amanda says there's no such thing as vampires: the unicorn thinks Alice is "fabulous" (as in mythical) * Janette's dress at the Raven has hearts on it * The lighting everywhere (even in Nick's fridge) is flamingo pink (maybe not a direct Alice reference, but a cool dream-effect) * Nick puts his hand to the mirror, just as Alice did * Are LaCroix's buttons on the white tunic Alice characters & objects? * Are references to the lake equal to Alice's pool of tears? * Is Nick's suddenly "growing up" to be a father = Alice growing taller? * The King tells Alice that there's nothing like eating hay when faint, while Natalie tells Nick that there's nothing like single malt Scotch. * The camera spins round and round Nick and Janette at the loft. The sheep tells Alice that turn around and around like that make him feel giddy. * LaCroix's face floats on Nick's TV screen like the Cheshire cat's * Nick's IA grilling parallels Alice's trial (The off with her head command/surrender your badge order.) * And in the end, Nick falls (back) 'through the looking glass.' * The characters are also parallels: ** Nick = Alice ** Schanke = The White Rabbit ** Janette = The Duchess/The Dormouse/The White Queen? ** Amanda = The Red Queen ** Natalie = The Queen of Hearts ** LaCroix = Jabberwock/Cheshire Cat/White Knight/Mad Hatter? ::The list comes from Judith Freudenthal's Forever Knight Episode Guide. The title of the episode "Curiouser and curiouser" is a phrase repeated frequently by the heroine, Alice, in the course of her adventures through Carroll's books. The dream frame Alice's Adventures in Wonderland begins with the young heroine falling asleep on a river bank. All her subsequent strange experiences are believed at the time to be real—as, here, Nick believes everything to be real—but, as here, all is revealed at the end to have been an dream. The walrus mask on the robber Although the masked robbery occurs before Nick falls asleep, this mask is undoubtedly intended as a Lewis Carroll reference—specifically to his poem "The Walrus and the Carpenter". Perhaps it was the mask that prompted the specific nature of Nick's dream. The caterpillar toy As soon as Nick wakes in the dreamworld, he finds a gaudily coloured caterpillar-shaped toy. This puzzles him, since he is in the loft at the time. Later in the episode, when we realize that, in the dream, Nick and Janette have a child, the presence of the toy is ostensibly explained. However, the particular form of the toy is an allusion to one of the characters in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. In one of her adventures, she meets a very large caterpillar that smokes a hookah. Names of characters Two of the supporting characters who appear in the episode are given names with Carroll connections. Indeed, one essentially just reverses Dodgson's pseudonym: Carol Lewis. The other, Alicia Carpenter has an obvious Alice reference in the first name, while the surname derives from the poem, "The Walrus and the Carpenter". Chess In Through the Looking Glass, Alice meets life-sized animated chess pieces, and her adventures take place as she moves across a gigantic chessboard-shaped landscape. There are actually two main chess images in the episode. First is the monologue by LaCroix, which is similar to his usual Nightcrawler radio broadcasts, except for the location. Instead of being in the broadcast booth at CERK Radio, he is standing on a large black-and-white checked floor whose pattern resembles that of a chessboard. The second chess image appears in the scene at Captain Lambert's apartment. On a table by the window, she has a chess set laid out ready for a game. A close examination indicates, however, that this is no ordinary chess set: the pieces are actually based on the characters of the Alice books. The picture over the fireplace The impressionist painting that hangs over the fireplace in Captain Lambert's apartment is not the one that usually hangs over the fireplace in Dr. Lambert's apartment. It depicts a young girl in a boat. This reminds us of the actual story behind the writing of the first Alice book. On 4 July 1862, Charles Dodgson and a friend, the Rev. Robinson Duckworth, went on a rowing trip up the Thames with the three daughters of the Liddell family. On the way, Dodgson entertained the children by telling them a story. This he subsequently wrote up in manuscript as "Alice's Adventures Underground". Expanded and revised, it was published professionally in 1865 as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland under the nom de plume of "Lewis Carroll". Mirrors Mirror scenes abound in the episode, with Nick seeing LaCroix even though the man is not only not in the room, but is supposedly a murder victim. This is a reference to Alice's adventures in the sequel, Through the Looking Glass: first she sees the room reflected in the mirror differently from the way it appears in reality; and then she steps through the mirror into the wonderful world on the other side. Besides this direct reference to the mirrors in Carroll's story, there is a more subtle correlation between the reversed orientation of the image that one sees in a mirror and the many reversals of character and situation that alter the world of Nick's dream from the world of reality. List of References Category:Story Structure